Films Showing

The Makioka Sisters

The Makioka Sisters

1983 / 140min / 35mm

DIRECTOR: KON ICHIKAWA

CAST: YOSHIKO SAKUMA, SAYURI YOSHINAGA, YûKO KOTEGAWA, JûZô ITAMI

Introduced by critic and historian Ian Buruma

Among the greatest Japanese films of the 1980s, Kon Ichikawa’s wistful adaptation of Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s novel about the four daughters of a prosperous Osaka family in decline, set in the before-the-storm year of 1938, is a movie marked by moments of unspoken longing and overpowering beauty (a parade of gorgeous kimono fabrics, a viewing of the spring cherry blossoms) born forth on an anachronistic-yet-somehow-perfect synth score. At once a touching requiem for both the prewar era and classic Japanese cinema.

The Makioka Sisters is presented by Metrograph and New Directions in celebration of the official launch of two major discoveries by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki: an early novella, Devils in Daylight, and his astonishing final work, The Maids—now available in English. Both will be available in the Metrograph book store.